Chapter 8
MALLORY
Rourke wakes completely oblivious to the fact that my whole life has tilted while he was sleeping.
His hand slides over my waist beneath the sheet, warm, heavy, and careless with morning. His fingers spread against my stomach before he knows where they are.
I go still.
“Morning,” he murmurs against my shoulder.
I haven’t slept. My eyes burn. My body feels scraped out and hollow, except for the small secret tucked low inside me.
“Morning,” I say.
He kisses the back of my neck.
Yesterday, that would have undone me.
Today, the watch waits on the dresser.
I can feel it without looking. Steel case. Blue face. Polished back. Jocelyn’s initial cut into it with a jeweler’s perfect hand.
Rourke props himself on one elbow and looks down at me, hair mussed, jaw shadowed, eyes warmer than they have been in weeks.
“You okay?”
I nod because my throat won't seem to let any words out.
His thumb brushes the edge of my ribs. “Last night was good.”
“Yes," I finally manage. It isn’t a lie, exactly.
It was good.
Until it wasn’t.
He studies me for a second, but his phone lights on the far table before concern can become anything useful. His gaze shifts. His body changes. Not enough for anyone else to notice.
I notice.
He gets out of bed.
I sit up with the sheet held to my chest while he dresses. Shirt. Trousers. Cuff links. The ordinary ceremony of becoming Rourke Carmichael again.
Then he crosses to the dresser and picks up the watch.
My hand grips the sheet.
He fastens it without hesitation, turning his wrist once to settle the clasp.
Jocelyn’s words close around him.
Not hidden in a drawer. Not questioned. Worn.
“Ridgeline?” I ask.
He looks over, already reaching for his phone. “Jocelyn needs a number from me before legal sends the revised terms.”
Her name enters our bedroom as if it has a key.
I stand and reach for my robe. The small box is still in the kitchen drawer beneath the dish towel. Cream cotton booties. Two star buttons. Ridiculous, tiny, and soft enough to make my chest hurt if I think about them too long.
For a few seconds, I imagine bringing them out now.
I imagine his face opening the way it did when he saw the basil flowers. I imagine his hands covering mine. His voice breaking over the word baby.
Then his thumb moves across his screen.
“About the storm,” I say.
He glances up. “What about it?”
“The road flooded after you toured the property?”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed in separate cabins.”
“Yes.” He frowns faintly. “Mal, I told you this.”
“A caretaker was there?”
“Luis. He got us settled.”
“What about the seller?”
His thumb pauses for half a beat. It would be nothing, if I didn’t already know how much of marriage happens inside half a beat.
“Everyone got where they needed to be,” he says.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
His phone vibrates again. He looks down. “The seller was fine. We all were. Nothing important happened. It was weather and bad timing.”
Nothing important.
He says it while wearing another woman’s understanding around his wrist.
I nearly cancel the meeting.
The calendar reminder appears while I’m standing in the kitchen, staring at the drawer handle like it might blink first.
Ridgeline acquisition event review. Communications sync. Ten thirty.
The words look ordinary. Venue plans. Guest timing. Promotional images. Visual displays.
Work has saved me before. Not rescued me, exactly. Work isn’t kind. But it gives my mind rails. It says stand here, answer this, approve that, and sometimes that's close enough to mercy.
So I shower. I dress. I twist my hair into a low knot tight enough to ache.
Marisol from communications meets me in a small event-planning office two floors below the executive level, away from the glass conference rooms. She’s friendly, efficient, and tired, just like the rest of us.
“I pulled the revised Ridgeline selections from the expansion folder,” she says, opening her laptop. “Jocelyn’s team sent the approved batch this morning.”
“Good,” I say.
A very reasonable response from a very reasonable woman who is not currently picturing an engraved watch on her husband’s wrist.
We talk seating first. Then guest flow. Then whether the central arrangement should echo mountain laurel or stay neutral enough for brand photography. My mouth answers. My eyes track the screen.
Lake. Tree line. Main lodge. Cabin exterior. Gravel road washed pale after rain.
Then Marisol clicks to the next image, and I stop breathing.
Firelight fills the screen.
Rourke sits inside the Ridgeline lodge with a wineglass near his hand. Jocelyn is beside him, angled toward him, her shoulder touching his. Their faces are close enough that the frame fills in the rest of the narrative for me. His sleeves are rolled. His mouth is relaxed.
No seller.
No caretaker.
No staff.
No one else in the room.
Marisol’s hand jerks away from the trackpad. The image skips forward, then back when she catches herself.
“I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “That wasn’t supposed to be in here.”
“Leave it.”
Her face goes pale. “Mallory.”
“Please.”
She moves her hand into her lap.
I lean closer. The file information sits small in the corner. Late. Very late.
“I think we’ve covered everything we need to cover today, Marisol,” I say, never taking my eyes off the screen.
If you didn’t know better, you’d think I was looking at numbers. Projections. Some ordinary little problem with margins and chair counts.
Anything other than my husband in a photograph taken late at night before a roaring fire.
Marisol stands slowly. “That’s one of the department laptops. Just... you’ll figure it out.”
At the door, she pauses. “Take whatever time you need.”
When she leaves, I remain alone with the photograph.
The files before and after it are clean. Useful. Deliberate. The lake at sunrise. The cabins from the south approach. The main lodge exterior.
Approved image, approved image, approved image, then my husband by a fire with another woman, placed exactly where my work would put my eyes.
Maybe it’s careless.
Maybe an assistant dragged the wrong file into the folder.
Maybe Jocelyn sent everything from the trip without looking closely.
I stare at Rourke’s face.
It’s the face I had in my bed last night. Unguarded. Warm. Present.
The watch is no longer one object. The photograph is no longer one image. They sit together now, two pieces fitted into a room I was never told existed.
I send the file to my phone with fingers that don’t shake until after I finish.
Rourke comes home before dinner.
He steps out of the elevator with his jacket over his arm. “Mal?”
“I need to ask you something.”
He stops.
“All right,” he says carefully.
“What time did the seller leave Ridgeline?”
His shoulders tighten. “Why?”
“What time?”
“I don’t remember exactly.”
“Before the road closed?”
He looks at the island. “Yes.”
“Who remained after that?”
“Jocelyn and I. Luis was on the property.”
“In the lodge?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Where did you and Jocelyn have dinner?”
His jaw flexes once. “In the lodge.”
“Did you drink wine together?”
“It was there.”
I almost laugh. Not because it’s funny. Because apparently wine now materializes on its own and no one is responsible for the glass in their hand.
“How long were you alone with her?”
“Mallory.”
“How long?”
He drags a hand through his hair. “A few hours. We were working.”
“And you let me believe it was a group overnight.”
“I told you the road flooded. I told you about the cabins.”
“You edited out the part where the seller left before the storm trapped you.”
“Because nothing happened.”
The sentence comes fast.
Too fast.
I look at him. “I didn’t ask if you slept with her.”
His expression flinches.
“I didn’t ask if you kissed her,” I say. “I asked why you and Jocelyn discussed what I should know and decided together that I didn’t need the truth.”
His mouth opens, then closes. “I was trying to protect you from a situation that looked worse than it was.”
There it is. The little phrase men like Rourke use when they've made a mess and would prefer to be thanked for sweeping half of it under the rug.
I flip my phone face-up on the kitchen island.
The screen flashes with the photo of him and Jocelyn. He looks down, and his eyes lock onto the image.
Recognition moves across his face first.
Then irritation.
Not guilt.
Irritation.
“Where did you get that?”
“Work.”
“That was a joke. She took it before…," He stops, and there's that irritation again, though I'm not sure exactly what he's irritated with. "The fire makes it look...”
He stops.
“Intimate?”
“It wasn’t.”
“You look relaxed.”
“We were exhausted.”
“You look like you trusted her with the version of yourself I got for one night.”
His eyes lift to mine. “You’re reading too much into a photograph.”
“Am I?”
“The wine was already there. There was nowhere else to eat. We were discussing the property. The cabins were separate. Nothing happened.”
“You keep saying that as if betrayal only counts if someone takes off their clothes.”
His expression hardens. “That’s unfair.”
“No,” I say. My voice is so quiet and restrained that I know later I will marvel at the restraint. “Unfair was letting me stand in our kitchen while you gave me the varnished, untrue version instead of the truth.”
“I didn’t want to upset you.”
“You trusted Jocelyn with my reaction. You made her your confidante and treated your wife like a problem to manage.”
He looks away.
The watch catches the light.
I look down at it on his wrist. Rourke follows my gaze. For one brief moment, he looks uncertain.
That hesitation does more damage than any confession could have.
“Take it off,” I say.
His hand closes slightly. “Mallory.”
“Take it off.”
He unfastens it slowly and sets it on the island.
I pick it up and turn it over. The engraving sits clean in the metal.
For the man who carries everything. J.
His face shifts. “It’s a thank-you gift. I was only going to wear it a few days so she didn't think I was being rude. I swear."
“Did she give it to you before or after the two of you agreed to keep the real circumstances of that night from me?”
He says nothing.
“Rourke.”
“After.”
It shouldn’t hurt. I already knew the answer, so why does it hurt?
“She's been working on the Ridgeline deal with me,” he says. “We work closely together. That’s all it means.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
He shakes his head. “You’re making this something it wasn’t.”
“If I spent the night drinking wine by a fire with another man, took a photograph like this, accepted an engraved gift from him, and let him help me decide what version of the truth you deserved, would you accept this explanation from me?”
His eyes go dark. “That’s not the same.”
“Why?”
“Because I know my intentions.”
I wait.
He gives me nothing else.
I leave the watch on the island and walk to the bedroom.
Rourke follows me.
“Mal, stop. We’re not doing this while you’re upset.”
I pull the small suitcase from the closet.
His voice changes. “What are you doing?”
“Packing.”
“No.” He laughs once, sharp and disbelieving. “No, you’re not leaving over a photograph and a watch.”
I open a drawer.
Sweaters. Socks. The old market apron folded in the back where I put it after I found it weeks ago.
I lay it in the suitcase first.
“Mallory.”
“You didn’t protect our marriage from her,” I say, reaching for shirts. “You protected your comfort from me.”
“That’s not fair.”
“The gala. The late dinners. Her finishing your thoughts. Ridgeline. The photograph. The watch. Every time you asked me to trust you while refusing to protect the conditions that make trust possible.”
He steps closer, hands open. “Jocelyn means nothing to me romantically. I would never cheat on you.”
“You gave her your private time. Your unguarded attention. The right to decide what I should know. The part of you that used to come home to me.” My voice catches, but only once.
I can live with once. “I watched her push me out of the picture and kept telling myself you weren’t letting it happen. But you were. You knew the whole time.”
His face goes ashen.
I walk back to the drawer beside the sink. My fingers find the white box beneath the dish towel.
For one second, the world narrows to cotton. Cream booties. Star buttons.
I hold the box against my palm where he can’t see it.
If I tell him now, everything changes. His defensiveness will vanish. He will become careful. Protective. Tender in all the ways that would ruin me.
And I’ll never know whether he reached for me or for the child with his name.
I slide the box beneath the folded apron and close the suitcase.
Rourke watches my hand on the zipper.
“Sleep on this,” he says, too calm now, like he has found the right negotiation posture. “You’ll feel better about this tomorrow.”
I lift the suitcase.
He looks at it as if it has only now become real.
“Mallory.”
I walk to the elevator carrying his child inside me and the words I won’t give him tucked beneath cotton and cloth.
At the doors, I turn back.
He stands in the middle of the penthouse, beautiful, bewildered by consequences.
“I won’t be here tomorrow,” I say.
Then I leave before he understands the most important truth is leaving with me.